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Proposed bill to ban suspensions for attendance violations falls short
Rep. Laura Terech, a Democrat, crafted a bill in response to an investigation by AZCIR and The Hechinger Report, which revealed for the first time the scope of the controversial disciplinary practice of suspending Arizona students for tardiness and truancy.
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EDUCATION
In wake of pandemic, some districts take less-punitive approach to absenteeism
Though suspending students for attendance violations is widespread in Arizona, it is not universal—or necessary, according to school and district leaders who have found ways around it. They argue effective alternatives must make school a place students want to be, and treat absenteeism as a problem to solve, rather than a behavior to punish.
Overrepresentation of Black, Hispanic students among those suspended for missing school could violate civil rights law
A first-of-its-kind analysis of education data shows that Black, Latino and Native American students are frequently overrepresented among those blocked from class for missing class — what some argue is evidence of a potential civil rights violation. White students, meanwhile, were largely underrepresented.
Suspending students for absences, tardies compounds learning loss
Suspending students for missing class, whether it’s because they showed up late, cut midday or were absent from school entirely, is a controversial tactic. At least 17 states forbid schools from suspending students for attendance problems at some level—if kids aren’t in class, they aren’t learning. Yet the practice is pervasive in Arizona, a first-of-its-kind…
Inside our analysis of Arizona’s attendance-related suspensions
For the past year, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting and The Hechinger Report gathered and analyzed data for attendance-related suspensions among Arizona’s traditional district and charter networks that represent more than 60 percent of the state’s public school students. Here’s how we did the analysis.
Pandemic accelerated Arizona’s years-long decline in childhood vaccination rates
The impact of missed preventative medical care during the pandemic is beginning to emerge in the form of drastic declines in childhood vaccination rates among Arizona youth, now at lower levels than at any point in the past decade. The plummeting rates follow a years-long decline in immunizations among Arizona students overall—one that has put…
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